part of the reason i was on here so much Sunday night, is that I had the first meeting with my therapist yesterday morning. I didn't sleep all night, and so came to the meeting full of caffein and adrenaline. I now actually wonder how I must have seemed, sinse I walked in saying what I wanted to get sorted out. We skirted around the issue, discussing before, ---- and after, then part way through the session she asked me whether I felt ready to discuss my experiences as a teenager. I did not want to at all, but I knew that in order to dispose of this, she had to know what was going on, ---- so, I plunged streight in and told her everything.

Afterwards she said, ---- with respect to both what happened to me at secondary school, and other events we'd discussed, that I must be angry with myself considdering I'd coped with everything else. I told her I'd done nothing special, just got through what was in front of me.

thinking about that persistance though, I've realized that at the times when things are worst, I do just go on, continue with what's in front of me, and push myself to endure through whatever is in front of me honestly without giving up.

I remember when I lost the site of my right eye when i was 7, I initially wore a black patch, so that I could pretend to myself that it was the patch causing me not to see, not the fact that I was blind in that eye. One dday, i just knew that I couldn't do that pretense anymore, and wanted to face the fact, and I wrenched the patch off myself.

sinse then, I went to boarding school when I was 8, where I felt totally isolated and home sick, but stil I continued. My very close best friend stoll from me at age eleven, but I just felt the hurt, and continued on.

Even with work, I'll avoid doing something for so long, and then when it gets to the point that it absolutely has! to be done, I'll just plough through it, however much sleep I must use, or hammer I must give my brain.

This is also I think why my favourite heroes are people like Frodo in Lotr, who just continue on with the task ahead, even when they themselves have lost hope of it ever being completed.

I know there are people here who went through much worse experiences than I did, and have gone on from them more successfully, but I hink what I'm saying is that I've realized, that however I feel, whatever happens, I can, and will, get through it.

I'm really sorry if this comes out as arrogant or unpleasant, I'm not claiming to do anything special at all, I just realized that I will be able to cope with the way I'm feeling now and survive it, just as I got through the experiences themselves and the other events in my passed.

I know there are people here who went through much worse experiences than I did, and have gone on from them more successfully, but I hink what I'm saying is that I've realized, that however I feel, whatever happens, I can, and will, get through it.

Just want to say ""Don't sell yourself short" for what you went through. Every experience dealing with SA is bad. It horrifies me to even think of how the abuse effects all of us. One "bad" experience is all it takes. And yes, many of us have endured more, but one SA experience is to many.

I like your determination to get through it. That is awesome. I at times feel sorry for what I am going through too. But then I try to think of that "little guy" inside of me that was abused over and over for over 5 years. Guess what, HE SURVIVED AND IS STILL SURVIVING. How strong he was. Now I have to be strong also and show/prove to him that we can deal with this together. We will win, we will survive.

I think it's a natural inclination for us to compare our SA experiences with those of other guys, but as Ken urges, please don't use those comparisons to judge your own experiences as somehow less, or to view the recovery efforts of other guys as somehow more successful. I think it's always easier to see the horror of what was done to others and to esteem more highly their efforts to face what was done to them. We are always the worst judges of our own past and our present efforts, I think. I see guys doing this all the time, and I also catch myself in the same trap!

Much love,Larry

_________________________Nobody living can ever stop meAs I go walking my freedom highway.Nobody living can make me turn back:This land was made for you and me.(Woody Guthrie)

Thanks Larry. The problem is, that if I just came on here and wrote a post about how I'd suddenly realized that i could survive whatever, that would be so detestably unfeeling and pretencious of me, ---- oooh look at me, how clever I am, how good at getting through stuff! that's what it would feel like to me, that I was ignoring all the other people here and just blowing my own trumpet very loudly.

Hence the totally necessary qualifyer, afterall this is nothing particularly special or important accept to me, and really I'm only sticking it down here for my own bennifit anyway, which I know is selfish.

I can see how I might not be able to accurately evaluate what happened to me when I considder other people's stories, but though I understand this interlectually, I'm not sure what I can do about it.

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